In brief

GEM is an international forum where organisations and people come together to develop, use and share tools and resources for transparent assessment of earthquake risk. Discover GEM, the people and organisations driving the GEM Foundation, and learn how you can use the data, resources and tools as input to improved understanding, assessment and management of risk.

In brief

'Working together to assess risk' is our motto. We do this through international scientific consortia developing global best practice, datasets and tools, as well as through regional partnerships in all continents, collaborative projects, open-source software development, rigorous testing and knowledge sharing.

In brief

Transparency, credibility and collaboration are core values of GEM. Sharing as much possible as early as possible is key to that. In this section you can explore the different types of resources available for you to use, to share with others, or to promote GEM with.

In brief

Join GEM. Only by putting our expertise and data together can we increase resilience to earthquakes. There are many ways you or your organisation can get involved, from becoming a participant in the effort to sharing your expertise and data.

What we do

There are five main areas in which we focus our efforts. Looking at how we are organised, you can see how the activities carried out mutually reinforce each other.

Global Projects

Leadings experts are developing best practice, datasets, models and tools through international collaborative projects. Working groups are formed to address topics of relevance on an ad-hoc basis. We also partner with international projects that contribute to our mission.

Regional Collaboration

Local experts are best placed to characterize the seismic hazard, exposure and vulnerability for their region and can also contribute to the validation of global standards and data. In Europe, the Middle East and most of Asia we work with existing regional programmes that aim to bring experts from all countries in the region together to address cross-border issues, share knowledge and data and build up regional best practice. In other areas we facilitate collaboration through knowledge exchange and technology transfer (training) workshops and stimulate the set up of new programmes.

Open-Source Software Development

The code of our platform and the various software tools is stored on a public code repository that can be accessed openly, whilst development documentation facilitates contributions by external collaborators. All development is carried out by the Model Facility, which has an office at the Secretariat in Pavia and in Zurich and is comprised of a vibrant mix of scientists and developers.

Testing and Evaluation

A Testing and Evaluation (T&E) Facility has been set up in Potsdam Germany, as part of the collaboration between public participant Germany and GEM. Testing and Evaluation within the scope of GEM focuses on the models and their robustness, as well as the modelling process, to ensure the highest degree of scientific rigour.

The Facility will therefore mainly do prospective testing, whereas the Model Facility will take care of retrospective testing, where past data is used to test the models as they are being built. The three main activity areas are: testing of the seismic rate model, prediction of ground motions and hazard testing of risk forecasts.

Learning, knowledge exchange and technology transfer

Knowledge exchange

International meetings, GEM's community platform (Nexus) and this website play a central role in promoting knowledge exchange and in facilitating it directly. From 2014 learning and knowledge exchange will focus around the OpenQuake platform, where users with backgrounds can calculate and explore risk and share their findings, working together to advance seismic risk.

Technology transfer

Transfer of technology is key to empowering organisations and
individuals, building on capacity or creating new capacity where that
did not exist before. In this development stage of GEM, focus is on
technology transfer sessions and training workshops targeted at regional
collaborators in use of GEM tools and application of data. At the
moment such trainings and sessions are very much customised (following
the latest developments in the tools, and attuned to the regional
context), but the experiences from these exercises are increasingly
being used to work towards standard curricula and exercises, which will
increasingly feature online modules.

IN BRIEF

The ‘GEM way’ of operating distinguishes us from many other
initiatives, global or local. We are trying to build on and learn from their efforts, through a participatory process.